Poison Ink

by Christopher Golden

  She called.

  On the fourth ring, she almost hung up, unaccountably nervous. On the fifth ring, Adam answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, stranger.”

  A pause. “Sammi?”

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  His laugh was more like a snicker. “Damn, you’re unbelievable. What the hell do you want?”

  She froze. Of all the reactions he might have given, she would never have expected this one.

  “I…I just hadn’t talked to you and thought I should call. I didn’t know if you knew I was in the hospital, and I lost my cell phone and—”

  “You lost your cell, huh? Please. How stupid do you think I am? You act like a total bitch and a complete sleaze, you send me all those texts, tell me I’m a loser, and now, what? Did you change your mind? I’m not a loser anymore? You screwed every other guy in the Merrimack Valley and you’re bored, so now you want to mess with me again? Well, no thanks, Sammi. Really, no thanks. Once was enough.”

  Her mind reeled, thoughts racing. What was he talking about? She hadn’t sent him any text messages.

  “I didn’t…Adam, I was in the hospital.”

  “I hope it was a mental hospital. Their big mistake was letting you out.”

  Sammi flinched at his cruelty and sat up, her face and chest aching deeply. On the edge of the bed, she hung her head, pushing her fingers through her hair, trying to make sense of his words through their sting. If Sammi hadn’t sent him those texts, then someone else had to have done it. And the last place she had her phone had been in the parking lot, when Katsuko, T.Q., Letty, and Caryn had been beating on her.

  Oh, you incredible bitches, she thought, the realization stealing her breath away. She’d been telling herself that they were not in control of their actions, but at that moment she didn’t care. Right then, she hated them.

  “Adam, I swear, I didn’t send those messages. It wasn’t me. I’ve been in the hospital for like a week. I got in the middle of this fight Friday night and was in bad shape. One of those girls took my phone, and—”

  “You expect me to believe that some girl stole your phone and sent all those texts just to screw with you?”

  “Why would I make something like that up? Seriously, do you actually think…”

  She let the words trail off. The phone line did not crackle. She did not hear Adam breathing, or any other noise. All she heard was a dreadful hollowness, and she knew that he had hung up.

  Snapping the phone closed, she tossed it on the bed. She and Adam hadn’t known each other long, but she had felt the electric charge of possibility between them. They might have become something. She had really liked him.

  And now he hated her.

  “Damn you,” she whispered.

  Her vision blurred and she let herself mope. But when she blinked and focused, she found herself staring at her bureau. On top of it was a small jewelry box, its lid not entirely closed. Sticking out from the opening was the edge of a folded sheet of paper.

  Sammi knew instantly what it was.

  She rose and went to the bureau, tugged the paper out of the jewelry box, and unfolded Dante’s original design for the tattoo. The thick line of the circle still had the same drama, with the hole in its center, and the five waves still swept up from the outer circumference, representing the rolling ocean and five girls who had once been like sisters.

  Unlike the tattoo on Letty’s back, the design remained unchanged. No tendrils, no streamers of poison ink spreading across the page.

  What Sammi had seen on Letty’s back was impossible. But she had seen it, and felt sure it and the girls’ behavior were connected.

  In that moment, she knew she held the solution to her dilemma in her hands. The only way to figure out what was going on, the only hope she had of stopping it, was to go back to where it started.

  She had to talk to Dante.

  Her first opportunity came the following Wednesday. The bruising on her face had long since faded to an ugly yellow. Her ribs were still tender but only really pained her when she lay down in bed and tried to go to sleep. The doctor had warned her there would be weeks of such tenderness. Her cheek still ached and she had lost weight from eating only soft foods, but Sammi knew that overall she had been very fortunate.

  On the Wednesday following her release from the hospital—the day before she planned to return to school—Sammi walked downtown and caught the bus to Vespucci Square. She went at lunchtime to avoid any possibility of running into Letty in the neighborhood, and wore jeans and dark shoes and a baggy New England Patriots sweatshirt, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  Despite the days and nights she’d had to consider what her first move would be, she had no plan. The only thing she could think to do was walk right into the tattoo parlor and confront Dante. All she really hoped to discover was whether he was aware of what his tattoos had caused, and what she could do to reverse their effects.

  Because Sammi felt certain, now, that the tattoos were the problem. They had started everything.

  But when she walked down Valencia Avenue on that early autumn day, the sun warm but the breeze cool, nothing happened the way she had imagined. The moment that she came in sight of that shop on the corner with its blacked-out windows—the neon Open sign glowing a dull blue even in the daytime—a chill went through her. Sammi remembered Dante’s mesmerizing eyes and the raw sensuality that exuded from him. But in retrospect his charisma seemed more like manipulation, and his delight like cruel mischief.

  Barely even aware of what she was doing, she backed into a narrow path between a greasy pizza place and an empty storefront that had once been a dollar store. Goose pimples rose on her arms, and she felt her stomach tighten as she stared at the blacked-out door of the tattoo shop. The crack in her cheekbone might be healing, but it throbbed terribly.

  Talking to Dante had seemed like the only option. And Sammi wanted another look inside the shop. Lately she had been thinking a great deal about the padlocked door at the back of the shop and wondering what Dante might have back there that he valued so highly. Not his equipment; that was all in the work area where he’d given the girls their tattoos.

  He’d done something to them, that night. Something unnatural. Sammi had to find out what, but no way in hell was she going through that door while he was inside.

  So she waited.

  At first she worried that Dante might not even be inside. Letty had said that the rumors in the neighborhood claimed the shop was always open, that the blue neon always burned Open and Dante never left the place. But that was next to impossible. Even if the tattooist lived there, he’d have to go out and get food sometimes—unless he had someone bring it to him, but that seemed far-fetched.

  Sammi laughed at the thought. Could anything be far-fetched where Dante was concerned?

  She waited, and she watched the door. Cars pulled into parking spaces along the street. People ran errands or vanished along small side streets where crumbling duplexes awaited. A couple of vehicles never moved, owned either by people who worked in stores along that block or by neighborhood residents.

  The black Harley in front of the tattoo shop never moved.

  What are you thinking, Sammi? What, exactly, do you think you can do here?

  Dusk found her still well hidden in that narrow alley. Sammi called her mother and said she was out with Anna Dubrowski and they were getting dinner, that she’d be home by nine o’clock. Her mother complained. After all, Sammi was supposed to start back to school the next day, but she relented. Her mother did not seem to have the spirit to argue with her since Sammi’s father had left. Or maybe she didn’t have the heart to deny her daughter anything, now, that might distract her from both physical and emotional pain. Sammi hated taking advantage of that, but her reluctance did not stop her. Had she asked to stay out any later, her mother might have fought her on it, but Sammi knew how far she could push.

  After hanging up with her mother, she called Anna to ma
ke sure her alibi would hold up. Anna wanted to know what was going on, but Sammi told her only that she shouldn’t worry, and promised to tell her the whole sordid tale later. A couple of little white lies. She had no intention of sharing her theories with Anna, or anyone else. Sammi had a hard enough time believing the impossible, and she had seen its effects with her own eyes.

  What she needed was proof, and a plan. She hoped to get evidence tonight.

  But the hours passed in utter boredom. When she had first slipped into the alley, her whole body had prickled with gooseflesh and her pulse had raced. By eight-thirty her legs ached horribly, her face hurt, and she felt more frustration than fear or anxiety. Dante hadn’t left the tattoo shop. The blue Open sign glowed a ghostly blue in the dark.

  Reluctantly, she left the alley and started back toward the bus stop in Vespucci Square. Sammi gave the black windows of the shop a final glance as she walked away and shuddered as she began to imagine them as dark eyes following her departure.

  When she reached the square, the bus was already pulling up to the metal and Plexiglas shelter with its out-of-date movie posters. Sammi ran for precisely three steps before realizing what a mistake it was and clutching at her healing ribs. Pain radiated through her. She hurried as best she could, and the driver must have seen her in his mirror because he waited for her.

  She held her breath against the stink of the exhaust fumes and climbed aboard, taking a seat halfway back. The engine rumbled and she kept her good hand pressed to her ribs as the bus jittered along the street. Slowly the anxiety that had built up in her began to ease, and she found herself quietly chuckling in relief and at her own foolishness.

  What did you think you were going to do? Sammi rolled her eyes, amused at her own naïveté. Even if Dante had left, he would’ve locked the door.

  The bus bumped through a pothole, and she hissed in pain. Her lingering injuries reminded her of the girls who had caused them. She thought of their hate-filled eyes and the kicks and punches that had rained down on her, and then she remembered that moment when they had all sat around together on the floor of T.Q.’s bedroom and agreed to mark their bodies with tattoos to immortalize the bond they shared, the love and camaraderie between them.

  And she knew that the next time she came down to Dante’s shop, she would come prepared.

  13

  T he tire iron came from her father’s trunk and fit perfectly in her backpack. She stole it that Sunday when they went out to lunch and he tried to pretend nothing had changed. They had burgers at Memory Lane, and after he paid the bill her father had to use the bathroom. He tossed her the keys so she could wait in the car. Sammi opened the trunk, slid the tire iron into her backpack, and set it on the floor of the passenger side. It sat at her feet during the long ride home as they avoided discussion of separation and divorce. Sammi asked him where he’d be living, but he hadn’t decided. The only certain thing, he said, was that he would be nearby. He promised he would never leave her.

  Sammi couldn’t keep the doubt from her face.

  Her father’s expression became pained. “I’m not going anywhere, Sam. I swear,” he said, more engaged with her in that moment than he had been in years. Even Sunday-morning breakfast, she had come to realize, had been more about him than her.

  “Don’t you get it, Dad? You’re already gone.”

  He flinched at the words, and it made Sammi happy. She felt no shame about twisting the knife. He’d earned it. No matter how many years passed, she would never believe he had put any real effort into working things out with her mother. He seemed relieved to be free and impatient to escape now from the daughter whose very existence was an uncomfortable reminder of his shortcomings as a father.

  After he dropped her off, her mother came into her bedroom to talk to her. Sammi barely looked up from her guitar. With her unbroken left index finger, she’d been trying to play slide with the glass cylinder she’d bought at the music store. The cast was unwieldy, but it was nice to be able to wrest any music at all out of her guitar, and out of her heart.

  “How’d it go?” her mother asked, innocently enough.

  Sammi looked up and saw the worry in her eyes, the dark circles beneath them.

  “Fine,” she said. “It went fine, Mom.”

  Her mother seemed hesitant, eyes narrowing. Sammi forced a smile. “We’ll be all right. He was never home much anyway. The only difference is going to be that we don’t have to watch sports anymore. Just us girls, now.”

  A terrible sorrow passed over her mother’s face and then lifted. She came into the room, smiling brightly, and kissed Sammi on the head. Linda Holland told her daughter that she loved her, and then left the room.

  Sammi cried after she’d gone, but only for a few minutes.

  Then she set aside her guitar and opened the backpack. The presence of the tire iron made her feel better. Her mother couldn’t help her. Sammi would never add her own fears to what her mother was already enduring. But she had spent a couple of days back at school now and seen what had become of T.Q. and Letty, of Caryn and Katsuko. People moved out of their way in the corridors of Covington High and whispered venomous cruelties behind their backs. Most of which Sammi thought were probably true.

  They were party girls, turning their lives into a wreckage of sex and drugs and violence. Lots of kids did the same—Sammi even knew some of them—but they didn’t become that way overnight. The people her friends had once been had been completely eradicated.

  Sammi had vowed to find out how it had been done.

  Which was where the tire iron came in.

  On a Thursday night, three weeks after she’d been released from the hospital, Sammi stood in the alley across from the tattoo shop and stared in astonishment as the blacked-out glass door swung inward and Dante emerged. For a few seconds she was so stunned that it did not occur to her to hide. He looked just the way she remembered, with his thick, wild hair and thin scruff of beard. She watched as he pulled out a jangling key ring and locked the door of the tattoo shop.

  In the moment before he turned around, she realized that she was not well hidden and plastered herself against the brick wall of the vacant dollar store. Nine o’clock had come and gone and the darkness cloaked her, but Sammi had staked out the place five times now—later on two occasions—and never seen him so much as set foot outside the building. Customers went in and came out, but Dante had never left.

  Even now, as he made his way to the fat Harley-Davidson at the curb, the blue neon sign glowed Open against the night. Dante threw one leg over the motorcycle, pulled on a helmet, and kicked the Harley to life. The engine roared, then rumbled low like some ancient beast about to attack. It growled as Dante pulled away from the curb and Sammi stuck her head around the edge of the building just enough to watch him ride off.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered.

  She turned to stare at the black window eyes of the tattoo shop. Adrenaline raced through her, her heart pounding. The moment the distant roar of the motorcycle vanished completely, she hurried across the street. Every instinct told her to run, to go as fast as she could before Dante had a chance to return. But if she ran, that would look suspicious, and anyone who’d noticed the girl in the baggy sweatshirt or the leather jacket hanging around the neighborhood might pay too much attention.

  Dante had locked the door. That was good. Otherwise Sammi would have had to try the front entrance first to see if anyone was working there. But he wouldn’t have locked the door with someone else inside, and she hadn’t seen any customers enter since a heavyset bald guy had walked out just after seven.

  Sammi walked around behind the building. A small alley ran behind that whole block, where blue trash Dumpsters overflowed with junk awaiting pickup. A single light burned in the dark alley, all the way down at the other end of the block. She found the back door of the tattoo shop easily. It was metal, and painted a dark color that might have been burgundy or brown; she couldn’t tell without more light.

 
; “You’re not really doing this,” she whispered to herself, flexing her good hand and taking a deep breath. But that was just fear talking. Sammi had not spent all this time waiting for Dante to leave to then ignore the opportunity.

  Her world had been destroyed, her friends twisted, her life shattered. She wasn’t walking away now.

  Sammi set her backpack on the pavement just behind the door and glanced around to make sure she was unobserved. She listened a moment for the sound of a Harley-Davidson roar but heard only car engines going by on the street out front.

  Unzipping the backpack, she took out a black leather glove and slipped it onto her right hand. Then she grabbed the tire iron. Its weight felt good in her hand. One end was tapered flat, intended to pry off hubcaps.

  Her left hand would be useless except to help guide the tire iron into place. There were two locks on the door—one in the knob, and the other above it—but the keyhole in the knob looked rusted and ancient, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time.

  Sammi slipped the tire iron’s flat end between the door and the frame. The door itself might have been metal, but the frame was wood. Carefully, she began to pry the bar into the space, wedging it in, trying to use it to pop the lock open, but with no luck. Sliding it beneath the lock, she pushed it deeper and rocked it back and forth, putting her weight behind it. When she had inserted it as far as it would go, she glanced around again. Then she pressed her cast against the bar, gripped it with her right hand, and shoved.

  Something splintered in the frame.

  Panic surged through her, and for a second she nearly bolted. The conscience she’d always had, the voice of the good girl she had always been happy to remain, urged her to stop. To run.

  Screw that. She had to know.

  Sammi shoved against the tire iron again and again. The door frame splintered, the lock tearing right through the old, damp wood. With a loud pop it gave way and the door swung open.